Miguel Sánchez
One of the defining points of the United States is the free market economy. Something that not only comes from the inertia of the times, but also from the way in which its territory was delimited. Responsible for a revolution against the British Empire, the first citizens of this country daily improvised new forms of social organization while they expanded to a west devoid of legal institutions and customs. A dangerous anarchy where the individual emerges to his full potential, normally dedicated to imposing his profit at the expense of his neighbor.
However, it is true that exceptions sometimes arise. One of them was the tucker 48. Convinced of being able to mass-produce a car much safer and more efficient than those offered by the Detroit industry, Moe Tucker devised a magnificent model that ended up crashed against the interests created by the state and big capital. Truly his story is that of a pioneering visionary faced with established evil. A beautiful epic with a rise to heaven and fall to hell that, in truth, is not what usually happens when we meet someone who says they come to revolutionize everything.
And, even at the risk of falling into Hobbesian pessimism, the truth is that these champions of individual entrepreneurship usually show the worst of the economic system. Forever embodying the role of scammers and smoke peddlers. Due to its bizarre nature -including drug trafficking and conversion to a strict religious faith- the most prominent example is that of John DeLorean with the DeLorean Motor Company fiasco. A story closely followed by that of Geraldine Carmichael with her Twentieh Century Motor Car Corporation.
GERALDINE CARMICHAEL. A REAL TOM RIPLEY
Described as a complex and frustrated character, Tom Ripley became the biggest hit for writer Patricia Highsmith. The fiction of his life weaves together a series of novels in which Ripley does not hesitate to impersonate one identity after another in order to escape his dark past. A succession of increasingly complex fraud in which the character is trapped making a gallows of his own rope. However, Tom Ripley is nothing more than a fiction while Geraldine Carmichael is pure reality. Born as a man, his passion for crime led him from a very young age to robberies and arms trafficking.
Activities that he masked with the same elegance and sympathy as Tom Ripley in his novels. However, while the fictional character only needed some adaptation to the dress of the person he impersonated, our protagonist needed to stop being him to become her. A) Yes, In the late sixties, the identity of Gerladine Carmichael was born. A gender change concocted in the company of his wife and children, showing that of what "The family that steals together stays together". And beware, because although it may seem impossible in the light of the current information society, the truth is that the disguise was successful.
Thus, in the early seventies Geraldine Carmichael was working in a marketing institute in California with her family. Introducing what was actually his wife as a simple maid. And in this placid way he could have continued until the prescription of his crimes. However, a mind that feels the same emotion in the scam as a gambler when gambling cannot be done to the simple daily life of a payroll. Reason why, In 1974, Carmichael rang the bell with what would become one of the biggest scams in American motorsports: the Twentieh Century Motor Car Corporation..
TWENTIEH CENTURY MOTOR CAR CORPORATION AND ITS TRICYCLE THE DALE
In 1973, a series of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East triggered the Oil Crisis. Accustomed to swimming in fuel without wondering where the barrels come from, Americans queue at underserved gas stations, unable to feed the imposing cubic capacity of the Chrysler, Cadillac or Chevrolet. In this situation, what the market most demanded were small, low-consumption urban areas. And it is there, in that new market gap, where Geraldine Carmichael entered with force declaring "I'm going to stand up and destroy the Detroit industry."
Such explosive and unsubstantiated statements. Perhaps that is why they drew the attention of some media based on the bait business over rigorous information. Be that as it may, the truth is that Gerldine Carmichael got publicity for his project, based on a three-wheeler. We talk about The Dale, which with its only 453 kilos advertised being capable of transporting two people. THEpowered by the 850cc twin from a BMW motorcycle. All this designed with security measures that responded perfectly up to 48 km / h.
So, the truth is that as an urban vehicle for daily use it was not a bad idea. However, the market was not at all ready to accept such a product. In fact, neither was Gerladine Carmichael's own Twentieh Century Motor. A company as fraudulent as the identity of its founder, who appeared on the sets as the widow of a NASA engineer. As soon as the fraud allegations began to unsettle unsuspecting shareholders, the California Securities Commission launched an investigation. It precipitated Carmichael's escape with three million dollars under her arm..
A bizarre story, which only made one thing clear: The Dale prototype. Badly finished, it was barely able to pass certain initial tests before being guarded until now in the Speedway Motors Museum of America Speed. There it is exhibited as a memory of what was one of the most bizarre stories of American motorsport. Something that, despite the swan songs of individualistic ingenuity, invites us to be careful of all those who claim to have found the formula to reverse consolidated markets.
Photo credits: all images, except the one thus referenced to HBO, belong to Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed.
